Piper Videos

Joe sent me a link to a video of Abraham & Molly Piper's son Orison reciting (most of) Luke 2:1-21. It is absolutely adorable and quite funny as well. He's has such expression--and the hand movements! We totally have to do this with Joey...



And then, there's Orison's service...so cute!

A question only a child would ask...hopefully...

Yesterday, was Parent-Teacher Conferences for the other classroom. One of the sets of twins (we actually have 3 sets of twins!) is in our class, so to make arrangements easier for the parents the twin from the other class joined us yesterday. (Whew! That felt a lot harder to explain than I thought it should.)

Anyways, as you can see they're identical twins and one of the little girls in our class asked a teacher, "But which one's the real Ian?"

Sponge Bob?

Yesterday, this is what I wore to work:



This is what the kids called me:



Apparently, my yellow shirt and my black eyes (ie, black-rimmed glasses) remind them of a certain sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Oh me, oh my!

Another story...

One of my students' parents sent this to the teachers and I just I'd share it because it was so cute.

After I broke, inadvertently, my promise to watch "Veggie Tale" (the one that has an angel on the cover) with Taylor (my 5 year old son), Taylor eventually threw a temper tantrum. I didn't know why, and punished him for smashing 4 pairs of slippers on the floor. He got a 5 minute-or-so timeout. Later after he stopped sobbing, he told me that he was mad due to my broken promise. I realized that I was in the wrong, and said sorry. We prayed together, forgave each other, and were able to become "co-pilots" again.


Then we prayed one more prayer for an uncle who yesterday went to a mission trip.

Taylor started to show me the green toy soldier he got from Julia's birthday (as one of the goodie bag items).

Taylor said:

"I want to be a soldier, or a hunter, to hunt people who don't know Jesus. To hunt them; but not kill them; I want to tell them about Jesus."


"Like Uncle DJ?" I asked.

"Yes, like Uncle DJ. Kind of dangerous, I know, but I'm not going to be scared. God will be on my side."

"As a hunter, what will you tell the people about Jesus? That Jesus loves them?" I asked.

"Yes, Jesus loves them, and Jesus will watch over them. You know, like the EvangeCube at school. It tells stories about Jesus, like Jesus died on the cross."

A little funny...

{My 200th post!}

We were singing this song in Bible circle today,

I've got joy in the Lord,

and He is my strength.

I've got joy in the Lord,
and He is my strength.

I've got joy in the Lord,
and He is my strength.

I've got joy in the Lord,
and He is my strength.

Hallelu, Hallelu,

Praise the Lord!

I turned to the left and heard one of my cute little students singing, "I've got joy in the Lord, and He is my stripes." It was so cute! But that's true also...in a way. We were healed by His stripes.

Happy to hear...

{Side Note: Sometimes I can't stand having a space to put a title, because I don't always know what to say!}

The other day my boss was relaying a story that was told to her about a family from her church. There was a family gathering and all of a sudden the 2-year-old son went into an asthma attack and then stopped breathing. While all the adults were surrounding the 2-year-old and trying to figure out what to do next their 6-year-old daughter slipped out of the room. A few minutes later the little boy started breathing. Shortly after the daughter reappeared, her parents asked her where she had been and she told him. She'd been praying for her little brother in the other room. She told her family her teacher at school taught her to prayer and that we can pray to God when we're in trouble.
It turns out that the little girl was one of my students that graduated last year and I was the teacher. It's my little Michelle!

Unexpected Mail

Sometimes you forget things you've done in the past, especially when it's samples and freebies. Take for example today I came home from work with a package at on my doorstep.

I shook it.

Sounds like a book. I hadn't ordered any books. Maybe Joe did? But it was addressed to me. So, I opened it.

Guess what it was...
Yep...one of those. Well, at least I'll be prepared next time around!

CCMS Thanksgiving

This year at school we had a Thanksgiving Breakfast for the student's parents. The children served and the parents enjoyed. It was cute.

Here's the evidence:

Seussical the Musical

Today we took the kids on a field trip to a Christian Youth Theater (CYT) production of Seussical the Musical. It was pretty cute and fun.

Startling facts

• 30,000 is the number of children under age 5 who die every day from a preventable cause.
• 1 out of 7 people in the world have no access to clean water.
• The world's three richest people own more than the combined gross domestic product of the 48 poorest countries.
• More than a 1,000,000,000 people in the world live on less than a dollar a day.
• 9 out of 10 kids with AIDS are African.
• Every 3seconds a child under age 5 dies from poverty-related causes.

What are you going to do about it?

www.compassion.com

Jesus Board Game

Since I'm a Bible teacher for preschoolers in at a Montessori school, when I make a new "work" for them I try to work within the the Montessori method, ideas, and model it after other Montessori works. This can be pretty tricky with Bible, which is filled with many abstract things that can be quite challenging to make concrete.

It is a board game of Jesus' ministry "Follow Me", but here is what I made over the weekend:

Everyone Wants to be a...

princess.

Working with children I am privy to the thoughts of three, four, and five-year-olds. It's always interesting to hear their thought process and reasoning. Sometimes even a blessing. Let me share with you what I learned yesterday.

I was working with a little three-year-old girl, Maddi (the littlest angel), and she just started talking about seemingly random things.

"Jesus loves me and God does too."

"You're right. Did you know that they're the same person?" I said.

"Uh huh," was her reply.

"Next year I taking swimming classes. My brother, Alex, him too. And I'll wear my swimming suit. And Alex he'll wear his swimming shorts. Mmhm."

"When I grow up I want to be a princess."

"Oh yeah, which princess do you like the most?"

"Cindrella."

"Why do you like Cinderella?"

"Because she's beautiful."

"What makes her beautiful, Maddi?"

"I don't know. She's just pretty." I think she might have mentioned something about her shiny dress. At this time another Jade, a four-year-old, piped up from across the room and said Cinderella was her favorite princess too. When I asked her why she also said, "Because she's beatiful." I asked Jade why she thought Cinderella was beautiful, "Because she's got shiny shoes."

(This is where it gets really cute.)

"I'm going to be a princess when I grow up."

"Oh yeah."

"Yeah, Jesus is going to make me a princess when I grown-up."

"Maddi, Jesus can make you a princess now."

To which she replied, "Yeah, when I grow-up I'll be a princess."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

That night at youth group, we doing an exercise on sharing our testimonies with the kids and having them share theirs in preparation for Mission Trip to Your Friends which kicks off Friday. After I shared my testimony one of my junior highers started to share hers. She was a bit nervous and didn't know where to start. We've been talking with the kids about when we share Christ to share out of our personal lives and how Christ has changed us, because ultimately when people hear and then see what Christ has done for us they'll be moved. Sharing a personal Christ is more powerful than simply sharing "Jesus died for you. Repent and be saved." Anyways, that's another topic for another day.

As she started sharing she began to cry. She was sharing how there are parental expectations on her (in regard to school) and that when she doesn't meet them she feels like she disappoints them and then turns inward on herself. She admitted to wanting to please people and is sad when she doesn't. She shared more, but in essence she struggles with her self-worth and identity.

She was wearing a shirt that said "I am a princess! My Father is the King of kings." I had her read her shirt to me and asked her if she believed that. She said yes. I asked her what she thought a princess was and she told me a princess was someone who was always happy and everything went right for her. I told her that a princess doesn't always have everything together. She's not always happy and things don't always go right, but she is confident in her position that the Father has given her. A princess knows where she stands, she knows her position in the Lord and is confident. We continued to talk and I had the opportunity to share with her more of my personal testimony and how Jesus began to reveal to me all the imagery in the Bible that refers to being a princess and that relationship with the Lord as Father and Jesus as our Beloved. It's powerful, and I believe every girl wants to be a princess.

Just like my junior higher, she didn't feel like a princess but she yearns to be that princess. I'm convinced that God planned things this way. That he put within us that desire to be loved, cherished, desired, beautiful, happy, and fulfilled. He placed that desire in our hearts from a very young age, just like Maddi and Jade, and events occur in our lives that taint the realization of our position as princesses. But the Lord knows, that desire is still within us, but it can only come to completion within Him.

The Glow of Beauty

Theres’s a thing that happens with little girls and women that turn them into something else entirely. I’ve seen it before, but I did not know how quickly the transformation occurs and how consistent the affect is among little girls and women.

I noticed it so dramatically two weeks before Christmas as I was trying costumes on the children for our school Christmas play. I had pulled Michelle, one of our older children, aside, try on Mary’s costume since the little girl who played Mary was absent and the two girls were similar heights. Michelle thought it was pretty, not the traditional sky blue we had used the year before. It wasn’t until I pulled out a long pink sheer scarf and began to drape it over her head, across her chest and tied it around her waist that the transformation occurred. Her little eyes grew smaller as her smile grew wider. She tilted her head in an all too natural way as her rosy cheeks turned just a shade darker. As I sat back I could see, she felt beautiful. Her face glowed, her mouth let out a little giggle and this little woman who is so precious felt beautiful. How such a little thing could change her countenance! A pink scarf. I knew I couldn’t take it away from her now.

I asked her, “Do you feel pretty?” She shyly nodded.

“You look beautiful. Do you want to wear this?” She nodded. “Okay, this will be your costume.”
It’s interesting how from so very young we crave beauty—in the things we make, how we act, and the way we look. Yet, because of the fall and our own sin we rarely see the glimpses of beauty and even less so do we feel it. We’ve littered our days with ways to make ourselves and our environments attractive—from throw pillows to hairstyles to how we place dinner on the table.

I can’t help but think that Michelle felt a taste of the Father’s love in those moments. He was lavishing [on] her. The beauty that He put in her when he originally made her. It is a magical and mysterious transformation.

A few days later it happened again with our youngest little angel. I was having the children try on their costumes so I could adjust the length. I had just finished with one angel when the bell rang to clean up and go outside. I quickly told Maddi, our youngest angel who had been patiently waiting her turn, we would do her costume the next day. Immediately, she burst into tears. She had eyed the costume long enough. The shiny white robe and the sparkly wings with eager anticipation and here I was taking it from her. Like with Michelle, I knew I couldn’t do that. So as the other children cleaned up and made their way outside I pinned the too big robe on Maddi. The same thing began to happen. It didn’t matter that the robe was too big. It was how she felt in it. Her smile was, of course, wide. Her little brown eyes sparkled as her little hands covered the giggles coming out of her mouth. She felt beautiful.

“Do you feel beautiful?” I asked, “It’s so pretty.”

I wanted to know why…what about just a plain white robe and white panty hose wings made her fell so pretty. So I did, and the only thing she said was, “It’s white.” The first thing I thought was “pure.” She felt beautiful.

We have this standard of beauty that equates to purity, no flaw. Something we see as beautiful does not need to be added to or fixed. It just is. And, oh! How we hardly get a taste of that beauty in ourselves. How we long to hear “My beautiful one, there is no flaw in you” (SS 4:7). Our souls, our minds, and our hearts long to hear those words. We see this pursuit not only in Christendom, but in the world at large. Mankind races to achieve something that cannot satisfy whether it be beauty, respect, admiration, or perfection. We live in a world that lacks true beauty, and we aren’t told we’re beautiful sincerely or nearly enough, but yet when we do we fly!

Like Michelle and Maddi our little hearts are met before the King and we not only feel beautiful, but treasured. It’s as if for that moment our status in the kingdom of God has come down to earth and we are recognized in our rightful role as a beautiful princess, and we glory in it! We are satisfied in the arms of our Creator who delights in beauty and we are satisfied when we delight in His. The root of our delight in beauty doesn’t come knowing that someone thinks we’re beautiful, it doesn’t come from pretty scarves or dresses, it doesn’t even come from a husband who dearly loves us and calls us beautiful. That glow, that transformation I saw in Maddi and Michelle comes from a Creator—the Beautiful One. He is where our beauty rests. Our souls are met in His arms. We are not beautiful simply because he created us with beautiful features or made us women. No, we are beautiful when we look to Him and are satisfied. That glow is our transformation. Our eyes get smaller and our cheeks turn a shade darker as our hands cover a little giggle, because we have found the waters that quench our thrist, the source of Life. We taste and we see, we raise our eyes to heaven and look toward the Beautiful One—it is there we are beautiful. Beauty is only natural when we look to our King. All else fades away as we are filled with the truth there is none more beautiful than the God who created us and the Son who saved us.